Black And White: The Switch
by Rohan Bernett
Summary: The official side-story to McPoodle's "Black & White". Read that first if you want to avoid spoilers. This covers Nimnul and Laurel's three days on Earth-C which were only briefly mentioned in "Black & White".
1. Day 1

**Spoiler Warning:** Being a side-story to McPoodle's "_Black & White_" (which I helped co-author), this assumes that you've already read _Black & White_. If you haven't yet read _Black & White_, do so now or this story _will_ spoil the ending for you!

**Author's Note:** I'm credited as Roxor in Black & White, but Rohan Bernett is my preferred pen-name. Credit here goes to McPoodle for co-authoring with me.

* * *

**Black And White: The Switch**

By Rohan Bernett and McPoodle

**Day 1**

**Earth-A**

Laurel Weir knew it was only a matter of time before Nimnul came back. Everything was prepared. Lou had his orders, the Dimensional Switcher was set for the post-apocalyptic Earth-C, now the only thing missing was Nimnul. The two-way radio, of which Lou had the matching unit, gave a distinct pattern of four pulses of static, sounding out the bass-line from Doctor Who. Laurel quickly put down her pen, closed Nimnul's notebook and retreated into the shadows.

Above her position at the entrance to the bunker, the door to the surface opened. Nimnul hovered in his pod for a moment, obviously having to let his eyes adjust after being out in the sun. The sight of the naked sun caused remnants of scrambled memories to stir in Laurel's mind, but they dissipated almost as quickly as they had come together. Nimnul and his hover-pod looked the worse for wear. Many of the silver hemispheres on the pod were cracked or shattered and he was covered in a layer of dust and debris, diminishing the black of his outfit.

Laurel noticed that Nimnul's attention was on the shimmering block of the Dimensional Switcher, which was currently in its idle state, however she couldn't help noticing the box of explosives Nimnul was carrying.

"You'll never get away with this, Davros," said Laurel from the shadows.

Nimnul had started hovering down from the entrance, but stopped several metres off the ground.

"It's about time that somebody caught the reference, although I am disappointed that I had to go completely black before anyone recognised it. So, I have a would-be hero to face, do I? Show yourself!"

_"A hero, me? Not likely."_ she thought to herself.

Laurel stepped into view, watching Nimnul's continued descent.

"Oh, I'd say the resemblance to the Doctor Who villain was pretty obvious. I'm surprised you haven't started screaming 'Exterminate!' yet," she replied dryly. Out of the corner of her eye, Laurel noticed the outer door quietly open to admit the Rescue Rangers into the bunker. _"Well, looks like my plan just got easier,"_ thought Laurel.

Nimnul didn't seem to notice the arrival of the Rangers and simply continued his conversation with Laurel. She knew it would be in her best interests to keep him talking.

"It's more of a homage," said Nimnul. "More importantly, unlike the original, I know that sometimes the best reaction is to run. Now is one of those times. Now step out of my way so I can leave this world. Surely you have no objection to that?"

Nimnul piloted a diagonal course to the ground, putting the Dimensional Controller between himself and Laurel. Laurel watched him set the controls, quite clearly not suspecting that she'd added a dummy control panel to stop him from setting the destination anywhere other than Earth-C. After setting the controls, he removed a makeshift time bomb from the box he had brought, and attached it to the Switcher. He placed his hand on the scanner, but was annoyed to see that the screen remained black.

"What have you done to the Viewer?" he asked irritably.

"It's the scaling circuit. You shouldn't have used sub-standard equipment."

Laurel began to slowly approach Nimnul, her eyes fixed on his goggles.

"What I object to, Nimnul, is you avoiding your responsibility. It's quite an apparent character flaw you have. You fled your world to ours because..."

"...because my world had no place for me, was unwilling to reward me as I deserved. As your television show has taught me, I was living in a world where the universe revolved around a team of vermin. So I came here, and it took a while, but I found that this world is not for me, either. So I leave your world saved from alien annihilation, my victims unharmed. You ought to thank me for what I've done for you all, so why are you so disappointed?"

Nimnul was answered by the voice of David Kano. "We are disappointed because you squandered your potential. You have no idea how much we gave up to put you in this position, and what did you do once you got it? You planned to invade the Galaxy rather than take the perfect retirement! How could you not foresee that this course of action would doom the Earth even more thoroughly than the Danaans could ever dream? Does your arrogance have no bounds?"

"Who... how...?"

Laurel held out an arm. This was the signal for Sparky to emerge from the safety of her hair.

"Gah!" Nimnul sputtered, pointing. "You must both belong to that race of shape-shifting aliens from the show!"

"We're not Fleeblebroxians," Sparky, or rather, David, replied. "I simply reproduced your Metamorphosizer. When I was injured on the Moon, it must have gone off before it was destroyed, trapping me in this form."

"You're lying!"

"Can you come up with a better explanation?" challenged the mouse.

Laurel was confident that Nimnul would buy David's cover-story. After all, to her knowledge, he hadn't been given any hints to her and David's true origins.

"...no," replied Nimnul in defeat.

Only now did he notice how close the two of them had crept while he was pondering his answer.

"I would appreciate it if you stepped back a foot or two."

"What if we don't want to?"

"You should know that I'm armed with six different death machines..."

"You abhor killing!" exclaimed Laurel. "Why else would you abolish the death penalty as your first act after the war?"

"...six different death machines, and fifteen different ways to cause pain or unconsciousness." He flicked a switch on the hover-pod's control panel. "If you make one more move, they'll start firing. Now to get that scaler fixed..."

Laurel and David saw Foxglove landing on the back of the Dimensional Switcher.

"What alternate Earth will you flee to?" asked David in hopes of distracting Nimnul. "The one where the Roman Empire never fell, or the one where men are ruled by apes?"

"You've been reading my notes, then. No, I'll return to my home dimension. I've learnt enough here to be able to take over that world even easier than I gained this one, and this time, there will be no rebellions. Even better, there will be no Rescue Rangers to stop me, because they will be stranded on this world... forever!"

Laurel snorted. "Why are you even bothering with explosives? The plans for that equipment are already posted on the Wired. We'll be able to rebuild in days."

"Even the Dimensional Switcher?"

_"Blast! I'm nowhere near finished duplicating the schematics for that!"_ thought Laurel.

Nimnul grinned at Laurel's momentary scowl. "The Switcher is _my_ invention, and there isn't a man on this planet who will ever be able to reproduce it!"

"You can't go back there, I'm warning you!" said David. "We have been told of the future of your world, and you will destroy it if you return. You will not mean to do this, but that is the inevitable result."

"Who told you this?"

"My counterpart, Sparky."

"I knew I never should have trusted that rat! He's going to the top of the enemies list when I return."

"See, that's the sort of attitude that will destroy your world. Sparky knew that would happen before you messed up his memory. We only found out about the fate of your world should you return due to a moment of clarity he saw me."

"Destroy the world? Don't be ridiculous! I'll conquer the world, and bring it the peace and prosperity it always deserved. Why would I want to destroy the Earth? It's where I keep all my stuff!"

"You don't get it, do you Nimnul? You're too self-absorbed to really try and help anyone if there's nothing in it for you. You won't take responsibility for your actions. You run away from them instead. It's your selfish streak that threatens your world. No. You're not going to escape this time. We'll personally see to it."

"Over my dead batteries! Eat amperes!"

CLICK-CLICK went the button on the control panel, but nothing happened.

"Uh..." Nimnul looked worried now and tried several other controls with the same results.

"Looking for this?" asked Foxglove, holding a circuit board from the hover-pod. Laurel didn't know how the pod's electronics were set up, but given it was still hovering, she guessed it was the weapon controller.

"You... no, it can't be! You're not supposed to be able to talk!"

"We had a little help from our friends," said Chip as he and Dale hopped down from the hover-pod.

Laurel resumed her approach to the hover-pod, stepping around the Dimensional Controller. Nimnul backed away from both the Rangers and Laurel, putting him next to the Switcher. He looked over at the timer on his bomb in time to see Gadget finish pulling apart the timer.

"The bomb's deactivated, guys!"

"You!"

"Oh, hello, Nimnul! You know, you really should have asked us before bringing us here. I mean, it's nice to see a new place, but being stuck 'half-there' in your head for a week is rather awkward. You know what I mean?"

"Gah! I was so much better off when I couldn't understand you!"

He reached out and pulled Laurel close to him. Laurel didn't even try to resist, given Nimnul was unknowingly helping her plan along. David hopped off her shoulder just as they'd planned.

"I'm going back home, and I'm taking a hostage! You will not use the Switcher to follow me, or I _will_ hurt her!" commanded Nimnul.

Laurel grinned wickedly. "A Switch? What a great idea!" Before Nimnul could react, she shoved the hover-pod into the barrier and touched it herself, causing both of them to fall unconscious.

* * *

**Earth-C**

At first everything for Laurel was black, but her hearing and vision cleared up in a few seconds. Looking around, she spotted shrew-Nimnul lying on the ground, looking up at the sky. The whole world had a visual feel to it as if it were created with computer graphics that might exist in the hands of movie studios or game developers in ten years. Laurel gave a smirk. 2008 wasn't that far away, after all.

"Where am I?" asked Nimnul.

"Welcome to your new home, Professor." Laurel noticed that her voice had changed slightly. She sounded a bit harsher than she was used to.

"You're a mouse!"

Laurel looked down at herself. She was wearing a dirty yellow shirt and faded blue pants. What was exposed was covered in a light-brown fur and she could feel her tail moving around behind her. Moving her hands to her head, she could feel that she had a lot of thick hair. Hair, which when she brought a strand round to the front turned out to be blond.

"Yes. Yes, I am. Haven't you taken a look at yourself?"

"I... I... I'm afraid to."

"Aw, what's wrong, Professor? Scared you won't like what you see?"

Nimnul whimpered in acknowledgement.

If Nimnul was going to be like this the whole time, this would be a very easy task for Laurel.

"Up you get, Professor," snapped Laurel. "I'm not going to sit around bored just because I'm going to be your warden while you're on this world."

"How long are we going to be here?" whined Nimnul.

"Until Francine decides to switch us back. In your case, that might never happen if she likes your counterpart from this world more than you. Not a hard thing to imagine, really."

Nimnul got to his feet and in the process of getting up, looked at himself.

"I'm a... a... vermin!" he cried, looking like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.

Laurel promptly slapped him across the face, almost knocking him to the ground.

"I will not have you wasting my time by going blue-screen on me. Don't think I won't hit you harder than that in the future."

"I had no idea a mouse could hit that hard."

"Oh, my counterpart can hit much harder than that. Just consider yourself lucky I'm not as experienced as she is."

"Do I want to know what she can do?"

"Probably not, but you still don't want to get into a fight with her."

Laurel surveyed their surroundings. In the immediate vicinity were buildings which had been abandoned for thirty years, with an overgrowth of vegetation, both from gardens and nature reclaiming the roads. The nearest buildings were in the best condition, but even that wasn't saying much. Far off in the distance lay great piles of rubble where buildings used to stand, along with a headless giant statue on its island out in the bay.

This city used to be New York.

Laurel's ears pricked up as she heard footsteps.

Approaching were four rats who distinctly looked like scum.

"Look, as I told Capone's other goon squad yesterday, the Professor won't be working for him. If you want his plans, you wait until they get distributed like anyone else," said Laurel, remembering what she'd seen her counterpart do the previous day.

"Oh, we're not here for that loser Capone. We're here for Fat Daddy C."

"Are you deaf? I just said that you'll have to wait like everyone else. Now, get lost!"

"When Fat Cat wants something, he gets it," replied the dimmest-looking of the rats.

"Not around here, he doesn't. You can tell your boss that if he wants anything the Professor isn't already working on, he'll have to file a request and wait like anyone else. Now, get lost."

"Nobody turns down Fat Cat without regretting it."

The rats promptly charged at Laurel and Nimnul, fists ready. While Laurel didn't have the combat experience of her counterpart, she did have her counterpart's physical strength and speed. Her counterpart may have been able to handle four opponents this size, but the difference made by experience clearly showed with Laurel struggling against just two. Nimnul, however, was completely useless. All he was doing was running and hiding from the two who went after him.

Finally, Laurel knocked her opponents to the ground, but with Nimnul stuck out of their reach the other two just came after her. Given she was near the point of collapse, she was certain she was going to lose, at least, until she spotted a vehicle heading for them, loaded up with rodents.

The two chipmunks on board held out a stick off to the side which Laurel could see would hit the rats if they didn't change course. Laurel ducked at the last second and the rats were knocked flying by the stick, the vehicle skidded to a halt and four of the five rodents hopped out as the rats got to their feet.

A squirrel raised a crossbow loaded with a rusty nail and fired at one of the rats, a large mouse charged at a second, the two chipmunks went after the third with scalpels fashioned into makeshift swords. The last rat ran and the mouse who was quite obviously this universe's Gadget took off after him in the vehicle.

Guessing the identities of the other counterparts of the Rescue Rangers wasn't hard. Laurel was fairly sure the squirrel was Carolyn's counterpart. She certainly looked similar enough. Until she found out otherwise, Laurel decided to assume the Ranger counterparts were named the same as in the show.

Tammy got three nails stuck in her rat before he stayed down, Monty beat his target senseless in seconds, and Chip and Dale had their target begging for mercy from their fencing skills in short order. A minute later Gadget returned with her rat badly bruised and tied to the bumper of the vehicle.

"Ugh. Saved by the Rescue Rangers," grumbled Nimnul as he managed to get himself unstuck.

"Well, _you_ were completely useless," replied Laurel with a scowl directed at Nimnul.

Nimnul pointed at himself. "I have an excellent excuse. With that very prominent exception over there, most vermin are completely useless. Now if you will excuse me, I have a good, long period of sulking ahead of me."

"Oh, no you don't. You're going to be working while you're here, Nimnul. Your counterpart is not going to be returning home to find he's behind on his work just because you feel sorry for yourself."

Nimnul rolled his eyes. "Fine! Assuming I don't accidentally _shed_ into everything I try to make! I was much happier bald!"

"What's going on here, Lahwhinie?" asked Gadget. "You were doing unusually badly in that fight."

"I'm not Lahwhinie," replied Laurel. "I'm her counterpart from another universe, same deal with Nimnul, he's here for a while until he learns not to be such a selfish brat."

Nimnul opened his mouth, but for once noticed he was outnumbered and the smallest creature in this scene by far, so he closed it again and merely nodded.

"That has to be the first time I've seen him speechless since meeting him," remarked Laurel, with a note of amusement in her voice.

Nimnul rolled his eyes angrily. His eyebrows looked like a pair of caterpillars which were trying to detach themselves.

"Heh, I guess Gadget will finally be able to win the techno-babble fight!" remarked Dale with a grin.

"Uh, what?"

"You two always compete to explain your inventions to us, so I was just saying that... uh, on second thought, never mind."

"That's Lahwhinie you're thinking of, I'm Laurel."

Dale sighed. "Hi, I'm Dale, and you're Laurel, and you're still Nimnul. Nice to meet you. Got any hobbies?"

Chip bonked Dale. "We'd better get back to headquarters. This place isn't safe after dark."

"What about the rats?" asked Laurel.

"Leave them tied up here?" offered Gadget, directed at the other Rangers.

Chip nodded. "Yeah, leave them for the 'Midnight Crew'. They'll think we're doing them a favour."

"Is it alright if we come with you?" asked Laurel. "I'm not as good in a fight as my counterpart and I don't think she'd forgive me if something happened to your Nimnul's body while he's on my world."

"Of course," replied Chip. "We came out here looking for you, after all."

"Looks like you'll both need patching up, anyway," added Tammy, while the Rangers finished tying up the rats.

"Yeah, if you wouldn't mind..." trailed off Laurel as she and Nimnul climbed into the vehicle.

* * *

Sitting in the Rangers' vehicle gave Laurel a better feel for how technology had developed in the post-apocalyptic world of Earth-C. The "car" had been built with large wheels and a lot of room on the suspension for them to move, much like the rovers which had been sent to Mars prior to the recent manned mission a few years back in Laurel's home universe. Unlike the Mars rover, this was considerably faster, although still powered by electric motors.

The trip took them through the ruins of buildings and over the remains of streets full of cracks and local plant life growing up through them. Quite obviously, nature was reclaiming what was no longer used. Moving towards the centre of the city, although most of the buildings were destroyed, there were, however, some paths through the grass, which were usually covered in pieces of asphalt, no doubt salvaged from roads elsewhere in the city.

As the vehicle approached Central Park, Laurel noticed a surprising abundance of artificial light in the area. Not just artificial light, but the constant glow characteristic of electric lighting. Considering the post-apocalyptic nature of Earth-C, this was all the more surprising.

"Where are you getting the power for this?" asked Laurel.

"An alliance of engineers manage to keep the hydro-electric power plants around the Americas running," replied Gadget. "Granted, we don't get anywhere near as much power as the humans generated prior to the catastrophe, and we couldn't run any human-built power plant that needs fuel, anyway."

"What about nuclear reactors? The fuel for those lasts for years."

"Nuclear power never went commercial here. The outcome of World War Two saw to that."

"What happened? Did World War Two turn into a nuclear war?" asked Nimnul.

"You're not as ignorant as I expected, Nimnul," remarked Chip.

"As far as we know, the humans who were not killed in the nuclear blasts, whether from Allied or Axis bombs, ended up dying from radiation-related diseases," Gadget elaborated.

"Yeah, Europe is a really creepy place now. The radiation danger keeps the sentients away, and only the plants and the ferals remain in the area."

"Are you saying the whole planet is too radioactive for humans?" cried a shocked Nimnul.

"Of course they are, Nimnul," snapped Laurel. "Think about it. Spread too much radioactive material around and the radiation levels worldwide will end up too high for humans to survive. That's what would have happened to our world if you hadn't prevented the Daanans from blowing up the nuclear waste dump on the Moon."

"I'll die here!" cried Nimnul, on the verge of a breakdown.

**Smack!**

Laurel promptly belted him across the face.

"Don't be a fool, Nimnul. You're not human on this world and your counterpart has survived just fine. Now pull yourself together."

Nimnul folded his arms and glared at the floor.

Dale and Monty were laughing at this.

"What's so funny?" asked Laurel, puzzled.

"If there was ever any doubt you're Lahwhinie's counterpart, that just crushed it!" replied Monty.

"Oh?"

"Lahwhinie's always beating up Nimnul for getting out of line," explained Dale. "I'd hate to think what he'd be like if she didn't."

"I already know," replied Laurel. "It's not pretty and that's why we're here."

The vehicle stopped outside a garage which had been built at the base of a tree. On the outside was the double-R logo of the Rescue Rangers. Chip hopped out, entered a combination on a set of four rotating rings and opened the door. With the door open, Gadget drove the vehicle into the garage, with Chip following on foot and locking the door behind them.

Once inside, everybody climbed out, with Laurel forcing a rather stubborn Nimnul to follow the Rangers to a lift. Dale closed the safety screen and turned on the power and the lift rose up out of the roof of the garage along a set of rails mounted against the tree, with the counterweight zipping past in the opposite direction, and eventually stopping amongst the branches of the tree. The safety screen on the other side was opened and everyone climbed out.

Rounding a corner, the Rangers stopped in their tracks. Clearly they had been expecting headquarters to be empty. That was not the case. Waiting expectantly for them was a rat in a dirty-white coat.

"Sparky? How did you get past our security again?" demanded Chip.

"I have my ways," replied the rat.

"As cryptic as ever," remarked Chip dryly. "What new information brings you here this time?"

"Not here. We'll have to talk at my outpost. Bring Lahwhinie, too. I need to have a word with her."

"Tammy, Monty, Zipper: you three stay here and keep an eye on Nimnul. Gadget, Dale and I will go with Sparky." Chip looked around and growled in frustration. "He's done it again."

"Done what?" asked Laurel.

"Vanished on us."

"Does that happen often?"

"Often-enough that I've lost count," replied Chip as he headed out the door.

"Three-hundred-and-nineteen," said Gadget when they were about halfway down the stairs attached to the outside of the tree.

"What?" asked Chip.

"This was the three-hundred-and-nineteenth time Sparky has seemingly vanished on us when I've been present to observe."

"He's like a ghost!" exclaimed Dale. "It's like he can walk through walls and turn invisible."

"I doubt it, but it certainly seems like it," replied Chip.

"Care to fill me in on this guy?" prompted Laurel as they stepped of the last step and started along a mouse-sized footpath.

"Why are you suddenly asking me about Sparky, Lahwhinie? You know him better than I do."

"Chip, I'm Laurel, not Lahwhinie. Her mind is in my body on my Earth right now."

"Sorry. I forgot. You look the same and sound so similar, it's hard not to think you're Lahwhinie."

"Yeah, I've noticed her voice sounds a little harsher than mine does."

"Anyway, Sparky. A list of what we don't know about him would take all night. He's a walking mystery. He seems to know everything that's going on, but only tells you what you need to know. We've seen him talking to Fat Cat, so we know he doesn't just give us information."

"We've heard Fat Cat demanding information from him without Sparky giving him what he wants," chimed in Dale as they entered the subway system.

"That makes a lot of sense," commented Laurel thoughtfully.

"It does?" asked Gadget.

"What you want and what you need are often two very different things. A starving man on an island may want a fish, but he'd be better off with a fishing rod."

"I think I understand you now, Laurel," said Chip. "A couple of months ago, we were investigating a theft and one of Sparky's leads not only helped us find the stolen item, but also resulted in us dealing a major blow to Rat Capone."

"Exactly."

As they made their way along the ledge to a maintenance room along the side of the track, Laurel was certain she saw a spider which bore an uncanny resemblance to Lou leaving the door up ahead.

_I wonder who Lou's counterpart works for?_

"In here," said Gadget when they reached the door.

Inside the room, it was actually nice by the standards of a post-apocalyptic world. There were several sizes of furniture, built for animals ranging in size from a fly to a cat. Standing in front of a door at the other end of the room as if he'd always been there was Sparky.

"Glad you could make it," said Sparky.

"I still haven't gotten over how creepy it is to find you standing there like that when you could only have been a few minutes ahead of us at the most," remarked Chip.

"I get that a lot."

"So, what did you want to see us about?"

"You'll see, but first, could I have a word in private with Lahwhinie?" asked Sparky.

"Er, Sparky, you do know that this is Lahwhinie's counterpart from another world, not our one, right?"

"Yes, yes, I know."

"Are you ever going to tell us what your 'top secret' conversations with Lahwhinie are about?" asked Gadget.

"When the time is right."

"When will that be?" asked Chip.

"I'll know the right time once I see it," replied Sparky.

"Hey, Laurel, if he makes sense, let us know, will you?" asked Dale.

"If he's going to tell me what I think he is, I won't be telling you."

There was a groan from Gadget and the two chipmunks.

Sparky led Laurel through the door behind him and into a room lined with fabric.

"It's sound-proofed in here. They won't be eavesdropping on us."

"They've been dying to know what you and Lahwhinie keep discussing for years, haven't they?"

"Yes, but I can't tell them. I don't know how it would affect the future if anyone else knew."

"Right, I'm guessing that you and Lahwhinie are both from the future. Lahwhinie went back first, had her memory scrambled, and without that trip changing the future, the time-machine was realised to be faulty, was eventually fixed and you went back in time to change history."

Sparky looked stunned. "How did you know?"

"The same thing, at least in the broad strokes, happened on my world. I'm guessing the details differ significantly, though."

"Nimnul got power-hungry and tried to take over the world. His plans backfired, Nimnul was killed, and civilisation was knocked back centuries. Nimnul's theoretical notes on time-travel, however, survived and eventually the world recovered enough to implement them. Those of us seeking to change history knew Nimnul was too valuable to kill and instead decided to go back and guide him on a more benevolent path. Your summary played out, then when I arrived in the past, I found that Lahwhinie had already found Nimnul, even though she'd lost her memory. She was just about ready to give up on Nimnul as being too much of a pest. I managed to explain what had happened and we began guiding Nimnul on his new path."

"Is that when Lahwhinie started belting Nimnul whenever he got out of line?"

"Yes. Until I arrived, she didn't have anyone else to turn to. What happened on your world?"

"What I'm about to tell you is second-hand to me, as I was the one with the scrambled memory. The Daanans invaded and hit Earth's biosphere pretty badly about nine months after their invasion started. Nimnul had crossed over into our world from his original and when he wasn't taken seriously and the war was going to be lost, he rebuilt his dimensional switcher and fled back home a few days before the cataclysm. About a thousand years down the track, time-travel had been invented by the surviving life-forms. I went back and lost my memory, adopting the name Laurel Weir from a dead woman. Several years later, I made contact with another time-traveller named David, or as he's now known, Sparky. The plan was to get Nimnul taken seriously to repel the Daanans, but we didn't expect him to go as far as he did after defeating them. Basically, he took over the world and implemented some rather draconian laws."

"So, why did Nimnul rebuild the switcher if he'd taken over the world? Obviously, he did, or you wouldn't be here."

"He wanted his world's Rescue Rangers to gloat over. Francine planted the idea in his mind and some of us organised a two-front revolt. When Nimnul tried to run back to his world, I'd had enough time to learn how to use his dimensional equipment and was waiting for him. I switched him and myself with our counterparts here to teach him a lesson. Your Nimnul and Lahwhinie will be returned in three days, given the instructions I left with the others back home. Just don't tell Nimnul about that. He thinks he's stuck here until his counterpart's wife decides to switch him back."

"You're sadistic Laurel, you know that?"

"Oh, yes," replied Laurel with a menacing grin.

"Seeing that look on your face shows just how different you are from Lahwhinie, yet I can still see that you're still her in a way."

"Looking at your counterpart from another universe is a bit like looking at your reflection in water. The image is distorted by the ripples, but you can still see it's you."

Sparky nodded.

"I had better give the Rangers their information, now. I trust you won't tell them about me?"

"Hey, if there's one thing I'm good at, it's keeping a secret."

They headed back into the meeting room to find the Rangers had been joined by a red fox.

"Agent Mulder, from your presence here now I think I can safely assume the situation has deteriorated," remarked Sparky.

"Sorry, sir, but you need to look at this update," replied the fox, handing Sparky a piece of paper.

Sparky read over the document, then turned to Agent Mulder.

"Thank-you for bringing this to my attention, Agent. You had better return to your assignment."

"With any luck, Fat Cat won't notice I've been gone."

"Good luck, Agent."

With that, the fox departed.

"What's happened, Sparky?" asked Chip.

"This was originally going to be to inform you about a kidnapping attempt Fat Cat would make."

"However..."

"However, he has acted sooner than initial estimates predicted he would. It's too late to do anything today, so you'll have to mount a rescue tomorrow."

"So, who needs rescuing?"

"Fat Cat has kidnapped Dr Winnifred Francine Cadwallader and her assistant Foxglove Fairmont."

Sparky held up a photo of a rat and a bat. Laurel immediately recognised the bat, but it took a moment for her to realise just how much the rat looked like Francine Nulton from back home.

"So, what does this world's Francine do that would warrant a kidnapping?" asked Laurel.

"She's one of Professor Nimnul's rivals."

"Why haven't we heard of her before, then?" asked Dale.

"She only arrived in New York within the last two weeks," replied Sparky with a shrug.

"Is there anything you _don't_ know?"

"I assure you, Dale, it doesn't stay that way for long."

"I think that's our cue to leave, Dale," said Chip. "Besides, I want to get back to headquarters before the Midnight Crew come out of hiding for the night."

Laurel and the Rangers headed for the door.

"Oh Laurel?" called Sparky, just before she walked out.

"Yes?"

"Do try not to let Nimnul get himself killed."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

As they retraced their steps Laurel noticed there was a distinct change in the mood of her companions. While they'd been fairly relaxed on the way out, with the sun vanishing below the horizon the Rangers had become quite on edge, as if they were preparing for a fight.

"Who exactly are the Midnight Crew?" asked Laurel.

"The lawless masses. Our influence is only enough to cover the daylight hours. At night, anarchy takes over where community is unable to enforce standards of behaviour," replied Chip, bitterly.

As they entered the park, various inhabitants initially pointed crossbows at them, but lowered them upon recognising the Rangers. Apparently, Lahwhinie was also on their do-not-shoot list.

Back at headquarters, Chip filled in the rest of the Rangers on the next day's task. According to Monty, Nimnul had been surprisingly well-behaved and had spent his time trying to build something before giving up and heading to bed. Tammy put Laurel up in the same spare room as Nimnul. Fortunately Nimnul seemed to be a pretty heavy sleeper.


	2. Day 2

**Day 2**

Laurel woke early the next day to the sound of Nimnul falling out of bed and the ambient sounds of the Rangers getting ready.

"Morning, Nimnul," she remarked with a smirk at the mad scientist's misfortune.

"Ugh. I had such a weird dream. I dreamt I was a mole in a post-apocalyptic world."

"Actually, you're a shrew on this Earth."

"I shouldn't have asked."

"Your counterpart is probably having similar thoughts about being human."

"How can you be so calm about this?"

"Honestly, I really don't mind being a mouse. I don't see why you're so worked-up about your counterpart being a shrew."

"It's... it's... it's the size issue, if you must know. I was picked on as a kid for being short. And I lost in every fight, so I took it out on the only things small enough not to beat me. It's no surprise I suppose that here I end up the smallest creature in the room."

"Actually, you're still bigger than Zipper, and there are still people here bigger than me."

"Are we going to eat, or not?"

"Come on, Nimnul, we'll ask the Rangers if they can spare any food for us."

"What am I supposed to eat? Acorns?"

"My, you're sarcastic today, Professor," replied Laurel with a note of amusement.

Laurel headed out into the main living area with Nimnul following behind. The room was decorated with hand-made maps of the area and the only electronics to be found were a vacuum-tube radio, which was currently off.

Entering the kitchen revealed the Rangers sitting around a table, looking over a map while they ate.

"Say, what's with the radio out there?" asked Laurel. "I wouldn't have expected there to be any broadcasts on a post-apocalyptic world like this one."

"There are enough people in the New York area to run a local radio station. It was started up again when Dale and I were kids," explained Chip.

"Yeah, but they only broadcast from ten to seventeen," added Dale.

Nimnul remembered the conversation from the night before. "So, is that Fat Cat's hideout?" he asked.

"That's it. We're figuring out how best to handle th' rescue," replied Monty.

"Do you know where they're being held?"

"We've made rescues before, so we know where he's likely to put his prisoners."

"Here, here, and here," said Gadget pointing out three locations on the map.

"Yeah, easiest to guard those," Nimnul agreed, having some practical experience in the subject while Emperor on Earth-A.

"Unfortunately, just because we know which three areas he's likely to use doesn't mean we know which one of them is actually going to be holding the people we need to rescue."

"Which is why we're going to have to split up," concluded Chip. "Laurel, I'd really like your help in this, but not if you consider Nimnul here unmanageable."

"Hey! I'm right here!" complained Nimnul.

"Well, Nimnul, are you going to make yourself useful?" asked Laurel.

"Well, seeing as I don't have any choice about when, or if, I'll ever be leaving this sad little world, I might as well come along. Do you mind if she and I check out _that_ room?"

"If you get us caught, I'll beat you black and blue."

"Now why would I possibly want to do that? Aren't you my only hope of getting us out of here?"

"Don't think screwing up is beyond you, Nimnul," replied Laurel with a glare.

"Oh, so the terms of my imprisonment extend to my deportment as well! I'm _sorry_, Miss Weir! I'll never let it happen again, Miss Weir! Shall I be spending the afternoon in the corner with the 'dunce' cap, Miss Weir?"

"Keep this up and you'll be spending tonight _outside_," growled Laurel dangerously.

Nimnul promptly shut up.

"Isn't that a little harsh?" asked Chip.

"It shut him up, didn't it?"

"Okay, so you and Nimnul can check this area, Dale, Monty and Gadget can cover this area, and I'll take Tammy and Zipper for the last one."

A few minutes later the group boarded the Ranger Rover, with Gadget in the driver's seat.

With all the equipment in the back seat, it was quite a squeeze to fit Laurel.

"There doesn't appear to be any room for me at all," observed Nimnul.

"Sure there is! You can sit between the batteries," replied Laurel.

"Oh, we've got the perfect place for you, Professor," said Monty, "Don't we, Chip?"

"Yes, let's show him his special place."

And with that they lifted him up and planted him on top of the equipment.

"You can be our mascot," Monty joked.

Nimnul sat there, the shock on his face turning to sour resentment.

"I feel like the iron ball at the top of a flagpole," he moped.

"Well, you don't have to worry about taking a lightning hit this close to the ground," chimed in Gadget.

"Lucky me."

It was, as might be expected, a bumpy ride, and Nimnul had some effort just to hold on. Nevertheless, he got a much better view of the city from this vantage point than he had the prior night. Laurel almost wanted to trade places with him. Almost.

"I'm still amazed at how well you are putting up with everything you have to do without," remarked Nimnul. "It must be hard to get up in the morning, knowing things are so bad, and that there's so little you can do about it."

"It's the right thing to do. If we don't work to improve this world, there's not going to be much of one for our descendants," replied Chip.

"The humans didn't think about that and now they're all gone, never to walk the Earth again," added Tammy.

Nimnul was quiet for several seconds. "What sort of world are you building?" he asked, softly, then louder when he realised he couldn't be heard the first time. "How long will it take before it's back to normal?"

"I won't pretend to know what the future is gonna be like, but it'll be better than this. Maybe one day get rid of the Midnight Crew. That would be a huge improvement. Still, I don't expect to live to see it. Maybe any grand kids I have in the future will, though," replied Chip.

"Our Nimnul is a big player in rebuilding the technology. Of course, there's only so much which can be done with what's left over from World War Two," added Gadget.

Nimnul nodded, wide-eyed. Laurel had seen what could be considered a signature in the technology of Earth-C which reminded her of Nimnul's inventions. It was as if Nimnul has been given the technology of the late 1940s and told to go and build anything useful he could dream up.

"Yeah, looks like the human extinction set you back about fifty years," remarked Laurel.

"Really?" asked Gadget.

"Ah, yes, the second half of the Twentieth Century saw even more technological improvement than the first half in my world," explained Nimnul, shaking himself out of his reverie. "The war ended in '45, to be followed by a 'Cold War' of propaganda and the threat of complete annihilation, but somehow, the nukes never went flying. America put a man on the Moon in '69. Given the 'secret history' of my world that I've been learning about, I would not be surprised in the least if a mouse managed to stow away somehow."

"The Moon, really?" asked Dale. "Did anybody move up there?"

"On her world, yes, but sadly, our world decided that space exploration was a 'luxury' as long as the age-old problems of hunger and unemployment still existed. I'd call it moral cowardice, myself. What else... colour televisions in every home, devices for sending images through telephone lines, personal computers, digital watches... can't forget the digital watches!"

"Well, it's not too hard to build a digital clock with the right gears, but somehow I don't think that's quite what you mean, is it?" asked Gadget.

"Liquid crystal technology. No moving parts. Lasts for years on a tiny battery. I never used to think much about them until I found myself on a world where they didn't exist. An author named Douglas Adams thought they were rather neat."

Dale said, "Our Nimnul has written about that. I don't think he has it working yet, though."

"Something about the cold, I think he said," added Monty.

Nimnul shrugged. "Perhaps I can leave him some notes. Most of what I know requires technology you don't have yet. And your world's Nimnul seems pretty clever, from what I've seen. He might be able to figure this stuff out himself, and..." Nimnul grinned at this "...get jealous of me for taking his glory."

"I'm sure you were busy inventing new stuff before transistors became widespread on your world, Nimnul. I don't see why you couldn't come up with something with this world's technology," replied Laurel.

Nimnul nodded. "You'll have to tell me where my lab is sometime."

"I don't know. I didn't see either of our counterparts anywhere that looked like a lab when I was scouting out this world with the viewer. Still, my counterpart did seem to stick with yours, though."

"Uh, guys, what did Fat Cat do to the factory?" asked Dale, pointing up ahead of them.

From this distance, the windows which still had glass in them were now a solid black behind the glass. Arriving at the factory, a close-up examination revealed them to have had black paper crammed up against them and held in place, on a large scale, by a grid of rectangular beams. Chip sent Zipper to check the roof and the fly reported back that Fat Cat's goons were in the process of blacking out the skylights and that there were a number of large mirrors sitting around on the roof.

"What's he up to?" asked Chip

"I'd say whatever he's up to, he either wants to keep light in or out," remarked Laurel. "I seriously doubt he's taken up photography, though."

Laurel's last remark earned her a snort of laughter from the Rangers.

After an arduous climb, the group reached the roof, on a side where they'd be invisible to their enemies. It took a bit of sneaking around, but they finally managed to get inside.

"That was too easy," said Chip.

"You always say that," countered Dale.

"And half the time, I'm right!"

"'Be careful'. We got it," said Tammy tiredly. Laurel suspected the Rangers had heard an argument along those lines countless times from Chip.

The group split up.

"Come on," said Nimnul to Laurel, confidently, leading the way down one branch of duct work.

"Nimnul, what makes you so confident about this route?"

"I have studied maps and diagrams my entire life, and I have the ability to think in three dimensions! That, and we're heading towards the sub-standard generators this world is stuck with, so if the lights keep getting brighter, then we must be going in the right direction."

"So, what makes you so sure that the people we have to rescue will be in cells near the generator?"

Laurel could tell from the look on his face that Nimnul wasn't thinking of rescuing anybody, but a quick glare set him back on track.

"Well, Fat Cat has obviously kidnapped Winifred to build something for him, and we're not only heading for the generators, but also the largest room in the factory."

"Nimnul, we're supposed to just rescue her and get out."

"Yes, of course. What did you think we were doing? Come along, it should be right after this panel."

The panel in question was the ventilation grill, which offered a view into a large circular room. The centre of the room was taken up by what looked like a mutant telescope that reached all the way to the ceiling. Nimnul's interest seemed to be focused on the electronic assembly Winifred was working on.

"This looks familiar," Nimnul whispered, just barely keeping his voice low enough to not be heard by Winifred or her guard, Mepps.

"What is it?"

"It looks like part of my conditioning system I used on Sparky and Buzz, just built with less sophisticated components."

"Part of it?"

"Yes, it used two subsystems. The first was optical in nature. I based my version on an electromechanical device I found at the docks. After I reproduced it using a purely electronic approach, I found its control effects were too wide-scale to be of use to me, so I added the electrical subsystem to provide finer control. This device here is the optical subsystem built with this world's technology."

"So, how is it supposed to work?"

"It uses modulated pulses of light to re-program the brain to follow behaviour of a known pattern. For instance, you can make a man act like a chicken, but only if he knows how a chicken acts in the first place."

Laurel thought that Nimnul's explanation sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't pin down where from.

"Doesn't sound like something your counterpart would build."

Nimnul shrugged. "I don't think it's his invention here. I think this is probably an improved version of the original device I found."

"Do you think it will even work on this world?"

"Probably, yes. Technically, it doesn't bend the rules of the universe, which is what made it so easy to duplicate in a purely electronic fashion. I'll tell you one thing, though: it won't work on us. Having bodies of this universe and minds of another is more than that design could possibly handle."

Just then, the door opened, and Mole poked his head in. "The Boss just called a staff meeting," he said, in a voice utterly devoid of emotion.

"I hear and obey," Mepps replied in a similar tone and followed him out. The door could be heard locking behind him.

"They're like zombies. I'd say you're right Nimnul. It does work, and Fat Cat tested it on those two dimwits."

"Well, you're in charge. What do we do? Winifred's all alone now."

Laurel surveyed the room from their viewpoint.

"Getting back up here would be too hard. Besides, her assistant isn't here and we have to rescue her, too."

"Very well."

Laurel was pretty sure that Nimnul had been hoping to get down there and get a closer look at the invention. Fortunately, he appeared to know better than to try and take control with Laurel around, especially in close quarters.

Nimnul just sighed. "To the cells, then." Nimnul closed his eyes, clearly trying to remember the route to take.

"Ah... left heading down the main corridor, so... right on the way back." He opened his eyes and turned around. "Down that branch."

"I hope you're right."

This was Nimnul's lucky day, it appeared, because not only was the cell block at the end of the duct, but its only prisoner was an unguarded Foxglove.

"Foxglove!" whispered Laurel from the vent.

The bat turned her head. "Who said that?"

"Up here. The Rescue Rangers got us to help them rescue you and your boss from Fat Cat."

"Thank goodness! I've heard a little about your group. Do you know where Dr. Cadwallader is? I haven't seen her since we've been captured. In fact, I haven't gotten anybody to tell me anything since I've been thrown in here."

"As far as we can tell, Fat Cat has her working on some sort of mind-control device, or at least, that's what Nimnul thinks it is. A couple of the goons walking around as if they're halfway to zombies does give evidence in favour of the Professor's hypothesis."

"Oh, dear," said Foxglove. "I've always been afraid of what the Doctor would do with a mind-control device. She carries grudges for an awful long time, you see. She's a perfectly respectable scientist when she's working on anything else."

"I think Fat Cat is probably more of a worry. He's ambitious and power-hungry."

"True," said Nimnul, "but he probably wouldn't have been able to scale it up to this size successfully without her help."

"Scaled up?" asked Foxglove. "How big?"

"Big. Really, _really_ big. If he had that thing on a mountain, he'd be able to enslave everyone in the city a thousand times over. Thankfully, we're in a low-lying area, and that thing is now too big to move."

"He'd still have to sweep it in a path over the city, though. That thing is built like it's connected to a telescope," pointed out Laurel.

"Like I said, he didn't think this thing through. I made a mistake like that... _once_. And we need to take advantage of that mistake before he finds a way to correct it."

"What was the mistake?"

"Height. Let's say he's able to raise that thing to the roof, which he should just barely be able to do. Not the top of the head, the roof. This is the most-run down part of town! There's nobody to zap around here! He might be able to reach six, maybe seven blocks at most. I figure that's only a couple dozen animals. What kind of slave army is that?"

"Good point, Nimnul. Now, Foxglove, if I hop down there to unlock your cell, can you get me back into the vents?"

"I can fly you out, assuming I don't make so much noise that we attract too much attention. I've had to get my boss out of more than one narrow escape when a power coupling failed catastrophically."

"Right. Nimnul, you hold the vent open. I can pick the lock in a minute or two."

Laurel hopped down from the vent and took a length of wire out of her pocket and quickly picked the lock on Foxglove's cell.

"Thank you," Foxglove said quietly, stepping out. She looked Laurel over. "If you could stand right there..." She backed up a few steps and with a spring took to the air, grabbing Laurel by the shoulders and practically flipping her at the lip of the vent.

Laurel just managed to grab on and pull herself into the vent. Hopefully, that wasn't too loud.

Laurel and Nimnul then backed up so that Foxglove could easily fly up to the vent and crawl in. "You're heavier than you look," she remarked.

"Probably the muscle mass. I get into a lot of fights."

"Ah," she replied, unconsciously shying back a little. "I'm lucky that I can usually get away without having to do that. If I were a better fighter, perhaps I wouldn't have become a scientist."

"Nice to meet you, Foxglove," Nimnul said, reaching around Laurel to offer his hand.

"My pleasure."

"So, with Foxglove here rescued, shall we go back for Winifred? I hope we won't have to deal with her before we can deactivate the device."

"What if the guards are back by the time we get there? I can beat up a couple of rats, but not a cat."

"Should we get the Rangers first?"

"We don't even know where they are relative to us right now."

"Then what do we do? It's not like there's an unlocked supply room somewhere where I can throw together some kind of super weapon."

"We'll rescue Francine if possible and head back to the Ranger Rover. The Rangers can meet us there."

"This way, then."

They returned to the vent to see that Winifred was eating her lunch. And the guards were still at their meeting.

"We don't have any rope left. So, Foxglove, it looks like getting Francine up here is up to you."

"But what about that machine?"

"I don't think we can do much about it right now. We finish the rescue, then get the Rangers and come back to wreck it."

Foxglove looked between the two of them. Seeing no further argument, she opened the gate and jumped down.

"Foxglove!" Winifred said. "You escaped!"

"Yes, and I'm taking you with me. We need to get into the ducts before we're discovered."

Winifred put down her sandwich and walked over to the duct. "I'm ready."

Winifred looked around her cautiously. "Professor Nimnul?"

"I see my reputation precedes me."

"Save it for later," snapped Laurel. "We've got to get moving before Francine's guards come back."

"Lead the way," said Winifred.

A few minutes later, they reached the rendezvous spot, where the Rangers were waiting for them.

"Congratulations on freeing the prisoners," said Chip. "Did you manage to find out what Fat Cat wanted them for?"

"Some sort of mind-control device. I suspect that's why he tried to recruit Nimnul yesterday, too."

"Not good. Is it working?"

"Yes," said Nimnul.

"Then we're going to have to deactivate it."

"It shouldn't be that hard," said Winifred. "Just reverse the voltage on a critical component."

"That's your solution to every problem," said Foxglove.

"That's because it always works," said Winifred with a sniff.

"I suspect that fixing the damage would be easy, though."

"There's always my solution," muttered Monterrey. Given what Laurel had seen of him while researching Earth-C, it probably involved several hundred sticks of dynamite.

"Blow it to bits?" asked Laurel with a menacing grin.

"My four favourite words," Monty replied.

"Nitroglycerin is fairly temperature sensitive and the device does use quite a few valves, which generate a lot of heat. I think you can work out the rest."

"Indeed. Let me get back to the car and...do you smell something?"

"Everyone hold your breath!" cried Chip.

Laurel promptly held her breath and put a hand over Nimnul's mouth and nose.

The gas kept on coming. And coming, and coming. Eventually, they had to breathe, and that's when they lost consciousness.

* * *

They woke up in the room with the invention. Fat Cat was standing over Winifred. "I hope you weren't too badly affected," he said, helping her up.

"No," she replied. "I made sure to build up a bit of an immunity beforehand."

Foxglove looked back and forth between them in shock.

Fat Cat smirked. "I always find that look to be my favourite part of a betrayal."

"Winifred!" cried Gadget, "how could you?"

"Do you have any idea what this device is capable of? After decades of playing 'good' and pretending to have forgiven them, I will finally have the chance to get my revenge! Revenge on all those who said I'd start a new war, just because I was smarter than they were. Everyone who told me that science was evil will now have to obey my will!"

"Boy, talk about overreaction, Francine," commented Laurel dryly.

Winifred stuck her nose in the air at this remark.

"But what about the side effects?" asked Nimnul quietly.

"There are no side effects," proclaimed Fat Cat proudly. "The device destroys the will of its victims. There are no other effects."

"That _is_ the side effect. Sure you'll have their complete and utter loyalty, but you're also stuck telling them when to eat and when to sleep. When they get sick, you'll have to take care of them, because they will no longer be capable of caring for themselves. Surely, Professor Winifred, that is enough reason to withhold your support!"

"I don't care," replied Winifred.

"You and I are scientists, Professor. We purchase the right to experiment at the cost of total responsibility!"

"It's _Doctor_ Cadwallader, Professor Nimnul. I never did like the title of Professor, and I still don't care about your objections."

"Wait, was that a _Doctor Who_ quotation?" Laurel asked Nimnul.

"'Planet of Evil'. Fourth Doctor," confirmed Nimnul.

"But you just quoted the Doctor. You never quoted the hero before."

"Hmm. Perhaps I've finally found a reason to sympathise with him."

"Who's the Doctor?" asked Dale.

"A fictional hero," replied Laurel. "If we get out of here, Nimnul can tell you all about the show."

"You know, they're right," said Chip. "Power comes with responsibility. Absolute power means you're landed with absolute responsibility. Do you really want that much responsibility?"

"You are all so naive," replied Fat Cat dismissively. "When one batch of workers become too weak, I'll throw them away and hypnotise some more."

Laurel gave a snort. "And just how long do you think the population will last under under a policy like that?"

"Shut up!" snapped Fat Cat. "Ugh, you are all giving me a headache. Well, now we get to the best part of my villainous plan. So far, I have been testing my new weapon only on my lackeys, but I can't be sure that it will work on everyone until I use it on one of you. So, who will it be? And if somebody doesn't step forward in the next minute, I'm picking the blond mouse in the overalls."

"I'll volunteer," said Nimnul with a gulp.

"Are you sure?" asked Laurel, playing along with Nimnul, and trying to steer Fat Cat into using one of the two people present who would not be affected by the device.

"Oh, no you don't! I intend to pick your brain for inventions after this, and I won't be able to get anything out of that head of your once you're brainwashed," said Fat Cat.

"Who says I'll give you anything?" fired back Nimnul.

"I have some new techniques I'm just itching to try. Somebody else."

"You use that thing on Gadget and I'll kick your butt sixteen shades of black and blue," snarled Laurel.

Fat Cat motioned to his goons and steepled his fingers. "Well, then, I think I'd better use it on you, if only to avert that fate."

As Fat Cat finished his sentence, the goons grabbed Laurel by the arms.

"Lahwhinie, you don't have to do this!" protested Gadget.

_"At least she remembered to keep my cover,"_ thought Laurel.

"I don't think Fat Cat is giving me a choice," replied Laurel. She lurched violently against the cat and fox holding onto her arms. "Ugh! I can't get loose. These two are stronger than I can fight off."

"Really? There's not a lot you can't fight off, Lahwhinie."

"Yes, really," replied Laurel through gritted teeth. "Seems Fat Cat isn't as stupid as his lackeys. Let me go, you lugs!"

The goons remained silent, their grips not lessening despite Laurel's efforts.

"Oh, no. I'm not letting you go," said Fat Cat smoothly. Grinning menacingly he gave a final order. "Boys, Take her to the testing room."

* * *

Laurel was led to a room with a glass circle in the floor and mirrors positioned above it.

"Now do remember to struggle," Winifred told her gently. "The point of the experiment is to prove that the effect of the device cannot be resisted."

"Throw her in, boys," ordered Fat Cat.

"Let me out!" demanded Laurel, trying to force the door open, but without success.

"Yes, exactly like that!" cried Winifred from the other side of the door. "Now this next part might sting a little..."

The floor beneath Laurel started to glow, forming pulsating patterns of light. The light was reflected by the mirrors, directing it over every surface, intensifying the effect. Soon it was so bright that not even closed and covered eyes could block it out.

* * *

L awoke, and looked about her.

She was floating weightless in space. She could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing, and echo-locate nothing.

Having nothing to sense, she turned inward. Her mind was a cacophony of thoughts trying to assert themselves.  
Foremost was the question of identity. She was Laurel. She was Lahwhinie, and Luna, and Lu'thyni, and a few variants not spelt with the Roman alphabet. There may have even been a Lawrence in there, she wasn't sure. Similarly, she was human, mouse, a machine intelligence, a thinking protozoan, a multidimensional being, and an entire planet, all at once.

L's several selves coalesced themselves as they agreed on a single thought: When it comes to the immunity of a dimensional traveller to a mind control advice, Nimnul had no idea what he was talking about.

"We are outside our body", L thought. "Out, perhaps, in the space between universes, as a being of pure thought."

Laurel, the part of L that was most immediately at hand, had the experience of two different universes, with subtly-different sensory systems. With the memory of how she had adapted to the transition between worlds, L reached out for new senses for this new environment, and soon found them.

At first it seemed like she was floating in an endless white void, but further examination dismissed that initial view. Dotted at regular intervals were small intense clusters of matter-energy. The arrangement, however, only appeared regular if it were mapped to ten dimensions of space. It wasn't much of a leap to deduce that each cluster was a universe and that what she was seeing now was the multiverse viewed from outside any given universe.

Now came the difficult part. Which one of these universes was Earth-C located in? For that matter, where was her home universe? L felt no homing beacon towards any one universe. She could feel which universes had a counterpart of herself in it, but she was unable to match identity to universe.

A moment later, she became aware of other minds present in the void between universes. Most of them were crying out in agony, lost and unable to sense. To L's "eyes" they appeared as nebulous forms, like small clouds. Many of them were undoubtedly victim's of Fat Cat's machine on Earth-C. Others were probably hapless experimenters who had tried and failed to create a Dimensional Switcher. Without help, they would undoubtedly spend eternity out here between universes. Suddenly the universe nearest her flickered, twice, then disappeared.

"How is time passing in this place?" she thought in panic. "Will my world be a burned out cinder before I figure out how to get home?"

She tried to extend her senses, and discovered an _eleventh_ spatial dimension. Laurel considered this odd as string theory was only supposed to have ten dimensions of space plus one of time. Instantly, several of her selves shrank away.

"What's wrong?" she asked her selves.

"That is the direction of the Watchers," they replied in the tiniest current of thought imaginable. "To demonstrate knowledge of their existence is fatal. Don't you see the gaps?"

L then noticed the gaps, places in the grid of universes where a universe was missing. Not missing... destroyed. An entire universe destroyed, because the test subject had detected the presence of the experimenter. Once that happened, the experiment was ruined. L briefly mourned their loss. But then she realised that their loss was her salvation.

The missing universes made the grid around her asymmetrical. That meant that it could be mapped to the grid of universes she had studied when she had been preparing her trap for Emperor Nimnul three days ago.

L rotated and adjusted her mental map of universes which had been found while searching for a suitable destination for Nimnul's punishment. Eventually she found a transformation which lined up perfectly with the vista before her. She knew where she was.

Figuring out how to move was much harder than finding her senses, but before long she was finally on her way.

"Hello? Is somebody there?" It was a foreign thought in L's mind, coming from a being that she was approaching on her way to Universe-C.

"Over here!" called the voice. Laurel stopped and turned towards the source.

Floating in space before her was a grey fox with blond hair. She was dressed in what seemed to be medieval clothing. Something about her seemed familiar.

"Do I know you?" asked Laurel uncertainly.

"Oh, only in the way you know your reflection in a pond," replied the fox.

"You're one of my counterparts," realised Laurel.

"And you're one of mine. I wonder. Have you been here before? You seem to know what you're doing."

"I cheated."

"Yes, we do seem to have a penchant for challenging the rules when they don't agree with us."

"How did you end up here, and stay sane?"

"Oh, one of my spells went wrong. I can partially push myself into this limbo to avoid the pain of torture, but my link back to my world snapped, stranding me here. As for staying sane, chalk that up to repeated visits here."

"Could you get back in your body if you could find it?"

"Yes. That goes for everyone here."

"Hmm... maybe I could help. What was your world like? How many suns did it have? Is there a season of darkness between Spring and Summer?"

"That sounds like a very alien world. Just the one sun. There's magic in abundance, though."

"That doesn't limit the possibilities very much. 40% of all universes are magical. Let's see... what is the material component of a lightning spell on your world?"

"Material components? There are none. Not unless you want to make a potion."

"Okay... what's the most refreshing drink for a warm summer's day?"

"A mug of honeyed wine is widely regarded as the most refreshing, especially if you pay the extra for the pinch of salt."

"Salt? Yes! I don't know the specific universe you're from, since you weren't there for me to make my observations, but I think I know the neighbourhood. You should try searching... there." Laurel pointed towards a small cluster of about a hundred universes surrounded by empty spots.

"Thank you. As payment, take this. It'll let you retain some memory of this place." A glowing ball of energy crossed the distance between them and was absorbed by Laurel.

"Ah. That may prove very useful."

* * *

"Get up."

Laurel found herself on the ground. She was back in Fat Cat's compound.  
At her feet she saw a strand of loose wire. Remembering to copy the blank look in the eyes of the other zombies she had seen, she slowly got up, managing to pocket the wire.

She saw that her minder was Mulder the fox, accompanied by a mindless Mepps, not that there was much difference between that and Normal Mepps. For a moment she allowed herself to look Mulder in the eye, and he winked at her conspiratorially. She returned the gesture.

"Well, that's enough of a break for a simple stumble," he said. "Follow me, you two."

Laurel and Mepps followed him in silence.

He led them around the corner to a cell door. "Now Lahwhinie, your job is to demoralize the prisoners by being your brainwashed self. Mepps, you'll come with me."

"No guard?" Mepps asked in confusion.

"Change of plan. With Lahwhinie in there, this cell is handled. Now the other cell, though, is the one with the Rangers. And only Mole to guard them. Fat Cat wouldn't want the Rangers to escape because of Mole, would he?"

"Mole's stupid," Mepps said flatly.

"Yes," said Mulder with a smirk. "You're much smarter than him now." He opened the cell and let Lahwhinie in, then locked the door behind her. "Now don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Laurel stood just inside the door, staring blankly, until she was sure that the two of them were out of earshot.

Nimnul looked at her nervously. "Laurel? Laurel? Are you in there?"

Laurel slowly shuffled towards him, then reached out and boxed his ears.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"That was for being wrong. Again."

"So you're alright?" asked Foxglove, the only other prisoner in the cell.

"Only because one, I'd been studying Nimnul's equipment prior to our Switch into this universe; and two, I had a little help from a counterpart in keeping my memories of the limbo that device sends your mind."

"So if you saw the conditioning system up close, then you know how to dismantle it, right?" asked Nimnul.

Laurel shook her head. "Not dismantle it. The minds of all of that machine's victims are still out there. We can still save them."

"How?" asked Nimnul. "It's a light-pattern emission system. You can't simply spin the image in the opposite direction."

"You could try 'reversing the polarity of the neutron flow'."

"More Doctor Who, eh? And we both know that phrase makes absolutely no sense. Although... if we swap the red and green, and _then_ run the blue input backwards, it _should_ attract instead of repel! Yes, I think that could work!"

"I'll make a hero out of you, yet," said Laurel with a wry grin.

"I hope you don't expect me to 'hero' my way into that chamber single-handed?" asked Nimnul sarcastically.

"No, we're going to break out of here, get back to Ranger HQ, and build ourselves some reinforcements. Tomorrow, we'll kick Fat Cat and Winifred's behinds so hard they won't be able to sit down for a month."

"What about the Rangers?" asked Foxglove. "What if Fat Cat starts putting them in that dreadful machine?"

"That'll have to wait until tomorrow. We don't have the resources needed to rescue them from the kind of heavy guard Fat Cat has in place."

"Very well. Do you have a way to get us out of here? Last time, you used a wire to pick the lock, but you couldn't possibly..."

"Oh, yes. I found a replacement on the way back here from the testing room."

Foxglove shook her head in wonderment.

After listening at the door for a minute to be sure no patrolling guards were in the vicinity, Laurel picked the lock with the wire.

"Right, Foxglove you pull the vent open and prop it up with the wire," instructed Laurel as she straightened the wire as best she could.

"Will do."

Nimnul looked up at the vent uneasily. "I'm getting tired of vents," he sighed under his breath. "After you, Miss."

"I just hope you don't mind Foxglove carrying you up to the vent. After all, it's too high for either of us to climb from here."

"I've learned to live with the height thing long ago, so no, I don't mind."

With Foxglove's help, they entered the vent.

Laurel grabbed the wire and quietly closed the vent. "Right, now let's get out of here."

Under the circumstances, Laurel did _not_ let Nimnul lead the way this time.

"We have to get back to the rover and back to Ranger HQ before dark. The Rangers can't control the Midnight Crew, so I don't think we'd be able to fight them off either."

"You don't have to tell me twice!"

"Unless you have the plans of the building memorised, Professor, we'll just have to hope the rover was left where the Rangers parked it."

They looked out of the wall vent at the pavement below, and the rover was indeed where the Rangers parked it.

Nimnul grinned. "I remember this from the episodes. Mr. Fat Cat has an unfortunate habit of forgetting the important things in life, like your enemy's primary means of escape."

"Either that, or his priority was keeping the Rangers locked up and he assumed that the rover would get stolen during the night. He's put two guards on their cell, but didn't assign anyone to ours."

Foxglove pushed forward to confirm that yes, there were no guards. Taking the wire from Laurel, she opened the vent, flew out, then turned around and returned. "Foxglove Express to the ground floor! Who's first?"

"I'll go. I'm going to have to figure out how to drive the rover, anyway."

A few minutes later, they were all in the rover.

Laurel switched on the motors and they sped away across the ground. Retracing the route back to the park was a race against the failing light. When they approached the park, a number of crossbows were pointed at them, at least until Lahwhinie and Nimnul were recognised. Soon Laurel pulled up outside the Rangers' garage.

"How are we going to get inside?" asked Nimnul. "The Rangers have a combination lock and we don't know the combination."

"Correction, _you_ don't know the combination, Professor," replied Laurel as she hopped to the ground and headed for the base-16 combination lock. "Gadget gave me a hint before we left."

"Well, then, what is the combination?"

"7-A-B-7. Easy as pi," replied Laurel as she finished locking the rings into position and threw the door open.

"What does that have to do with pie?" asked Foxglove as they pushed the rover into the garage. 


	3. Day 3

**Day 3**

Laurel, Nimnul and Foxglove had been up all night when the sun's rays began to creep into the tree. While Nimnul had been extremely productive over the last several hours, Laurel had ended up needing to scold him for trying to take shortcuts which were prohibited by the laws of Earth-C.

"Nimnul, what are you doing? That won't work here. This isn't Earth-A or Earth-R. This is a strongly rule-based universe. There are no cheat codes for you to exploit. You either play by the rules or you get nowhere."

Nimnul quickly sketched out a design of a disk-shaped object hovering above the ground. It would have been recognisable as a UFO from the "Saucer Scare" of the 1950's, if Earth-C had gone through a "Saucer Scare".

"How about this?" he asked.

"How are you supposed to build that with a World War Two technology base?"

"You just build a big enough magnet, and point it at the ground!"

Laurel shook her head. Typical cartoon thinking.

"That won't keep anything in the air. You'll just be attracted to any iron in the ground and stuck there."

"Details. That's what's wrong with this world. Too many details! It's hopeless! You have a better chance of inventing something that will _work_ on this world. I give up!"

"Well, maybe you should take a look at what Gadget has managed to build."

"Oh, not that, anything but that! I escaped one world when I discovered I was living in her shadow!"

"Well, your counterpart has been following the rules and he's managed to rebuild substantial portions of this world's technology. You, however, are not used to following the rules when inventing something. You need examples of what can and can't be done. The only such examples which are readily available are those in Gadget's workshop, so you may as well use those."

Nimnul sighed. "Fine. Let's get this over with. Take me to her laboratory."

Laurel led him to a room at the back of Ranger HQ and flipped a switch. A variety of light bulbs scattered around the room began to glow.

Nimnul stood for a second, listening to the near-silence in the room. "Now _that's_ how you build a generator!" he proclaimed despite himself.

He then walked slowly around the room, stopping occasionally to pick up and examine some half-finished invention of Gadget's.

"Well, any luck?"

"Hmm..." Nimnul was silent for a moment.

"Ever heard of a coil gun?" he asked, picking up a number of items scattered around the room.

"Yeah, I've seen pictures of home-made ones on the Wired."

"Well based on these components, I'd say that the coil gun is not only possible on this world, but Gadget was just a few steps away from building a couple. I'll just save her the trouble."

"Well, a couple of coil guns will give us a lot more firepower than crossbows. Almost makes me feel sorry for Fat Cat. Almost."

At that moment, Sparky seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Hello again. I've heard about what happened at Fat Cat's yesterday."

"Come to gloat?" Nimnul asked absently, absorbed in his work.

"Gloat? Professor, villains gloat. I am not a villain."

"_Everybody_ gloats, or else nearly everybody I encountered in my childhood was a villain. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot..."

"In any case, you need to succeed in your assault today. Should you fail, the world will be knocked back into last century, and given the damage which has already hit it, we really can't afford that."

Nimnul nodded grimly. "Understood."

"Now, Lahwhinie, I need to know how you survived Fat Cat's machine. My agent wasn't able to figure out how you did it."

"It's not mind-control. It's an unguided dimensional switcher."

"So, where did it send you?"

"Limbo. There are others trapped out there, but Nimnul thinks he can modify the device to reverse the process."

"Got the doohickey for that right here," said Nimnul, patting a full pocket of his coat.

"Good, Good. You need to do this today. Fat Cat is planning on launching a series of balloons to relay the signal from his device tomorrow."

"And... done! We're ready to go. Wish us luck!"

"You'll need it, and this map showing where the defences are strongest." Sparky tossed Laurel a rolled up piece of paper. "I'll show myself out." With that he walked around the corner and disappeared.

Nimnul stepped back, looked at the tank-sized (in mouse scale) guns, then looked back at the too-small door of the lab.

"Um..."

Laurel sighed and pressed a button on the wall, causing the garage door mechanism at the other end of the lab to open.

"When did that get there?"

"It's been there the whole time. You were just too engrossed in your work to notice it."

"Alright, let's do this!" He made an enthusiastic run at one of the wheeled guns...and absolutely failed to move it.

"...a little help?"

Laurel put her fingers to her mouth and blew a shrill whistle, which was shortly answered by the presence of Foxglove.

"Ooh, those are big guns!" she said.

"Yes, and we need help moving them to the garage to mount on the Ranger Rover."

"Okay!"

With the three of them pushing, and two trips, they managed to get the coil guns into the garage, where Nimnul got to work with the crane and some scrap metal mounting them on the Ranger Rover.

An hour later, Nimnul stepped back from his creation. The former Ranger Rover was completely transformed into a full-blown tank. Five-ply, five-millimetre-thick armour plating covered every surface. The armour itself was composed of alternating layers of steel and adhesive. The twin coil guns were mounted inside a turret-like housing on the top, where the operator could easily reload them with bits of scrap metal (mostly rusty nails). Mounted on the under-carriage were a half-dozen nozzles for dispensing a variety of unpleasant substances of Nimnul's own creation. Finally, the front of the vehicle was fitted with an electric motor spinning a pair of sharpened screws with explosives attached to them, nicknamed "doorbusters" by Foxglove. Nimnul had originally wanted to use an old lead paperweight as a battering ram, but Laurel had talked him out of it, citing that the mass would limit their mobility too much to be practical.

"Well, that's all I can do in the world of building," Nimnul concluded. "The outcome of the next stage depends on your driving skills and my aiming skills."

"And mine," chimed in Foxglove.

Nimnul nodded. "You retain the freedom of movement we lose by using the tank. We need you to weaken their defences and keep their attacks split so we can get close enough to engage our main weapons. Do you have everything you need?"

"We do have some explosives she could carry and drop from the air, and if she's blindfolded, any attempts at using the Displacer on her would be futile. After all, her echolocation should be able to make up for a loss of vision."

"Indeed."

"I don't know how much the Rangers pull their punches, but it doesn't look like you two know the meaning of the term," remarked Foxglove.

"It's amazing what you can do when you don't have a good reputation to maintain," replied Nimnul. Laurel gave a feral grin of agreement.

* * *

Fat Cat emerged on the roof of the Happy Tom Cat Food factory to find out the source of the noise that interrupting his latest "morale speech" to his mindless minions.

"Mulder!" he roared.

"Yes, sir?" the fox replied.

"A tank? A tank? Where in blazes did that tank come from?"

"Well, when a mummy tank and a daddy tank love each other very much..."

"GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! The rest of you, get the guns over to this side of the building!"

As the zombies scrambled about as fast as zombies are capable, Mulder slipped away.

Even down on the ground and over the noise of the tank's motors Fat Cat and Mulder had been loud enough for Laurel to hear them. A round of snickering in the tank had ensured.

Laurel turned serious again.

"Let's show him what we're packing. Ready the doorbuster screws."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n!" replied Nimnul and powered up the motor for the screws.

Foxglove hopped out the back with three bombs. While Laurel and Nimnul blasted a hole in the door, Foxglove would distract the guards by bombing them from the air.

Laurel drove right for the door, a crossbow bolt bouncing off the tank's armour in the process, and coinciding with Foxglove's first bomb going off, rammed the screws up against the door. The motor and gears swiftly drove the screws into the door, pushed by the tank's main drive motors. Once they stuck, Nimnul started pulling the bolts holding the mechanism to the underside of the tank and disconnected the motor from the tank's batteries. While doing so, Foxglove's second bomb went off. Nimnul then yanked on the cord holding the timer's pin in place.

"Get us clear!"

Laurel promptly put the tank into reverse and it sped away from the door much faster than the initial approach due to leaving behind a significant amount of mass. Five seconds later, Foxglove dropped her last bomb and the timer ran out, releasing a spring-loaded magnet to fly into a coil of wire and generate a brief pulse of electricity which set off the explosives and blasting a hole significantly bigger than needed in the door and pelting the tank with fragments of wood and bits of metal from the motorised assembly.

"Man the weapons, Nimnul, we're going in!"

The tank sped forward and into the hole.

Once inside, the tank came under fire from a pair of automatic pistols which had been set up as makeshift gun turrets, controlled by Fat Cat via a set of levers. Snout and Mepps had a third gun which put them off balance every time they managed to fire it.

Inside the tank, Nimnul kept up a steady stream of flying scrap metal by alternately firing the twin coilguns. While the bombardment from Fat Cat's defences hindered his accuracy, he did manage a few hits. The coilguns themselves weren't powerful enough to kill at this distance, but they were indeed powerful enough to bruise with blunt ammunition and cause scratches with rough edged projectiles.

The tank's liquid dispensers, controlled by Laurel, were enough of a deterrent to keep anyone away from the tank, but she knew it was only buying them time. Mulder had, under orders and during a window Fat Cat had opened up for such a purpose, attempted to directly attack the tank, but the chemical burns from the dispensers had been enough to make him quickly back off.

Eventually, Fat Cat ran out of bullets and a stray one bouncing off the tank's armour knocked out Snout. Almost immediately afterwards, Foxglove appeared behind Mepps and dropped a spanner on his head.

While the tank was no longer in any fit state to drive, given significant structural damage and the batteries being almost flat from powering the coilguns, Fat Cat was in retreat, and with good reason: Laurel and Nimnul had handheld weapons.

"You can come out now," Foxglove said, emerging from the stairway and pushing aside the unconscious body of Mepps. "I got two on the roof. All that's left are Fat Cat, Mulder... and Winifred."

"I'm guessing you want her, right?" asked Laurel.

"If you don't mind." The bat had a smile fit to induce nightmares in small children... or her counterparts on Earths A and R.

After the sound of a gear unscrewing, the top of the tank opened and Nimnul and Laurel climbed out wearing small blocks of wood tied to their feet until they cleared the chemical spills. Nimnul was carrying a mini-rifle, a weapon he'd adapted from one of Gadget's prototypes. The original had used compressed air from a tank worn on the back, but after finding some old bullets, Nimnul had modified it to use gunpowder. While he had cut down the size it was still bulky, and in his shrew hands it looked huge. Laurel on the other hand was armed with a scope-fitted crossbow and plenty of steel-tipped arrows.

"Take her," said Laurel to Foxglove. "We'll deal with Fat Cat."

"Hmm... if I were Fat Cat, where would I be?" mused Nimnul. After a moment he added "I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count."

* * *

As predicted, Fat Cat was in the cell block with Mulder, herding the shackled Rangers out. "Faster, you vermin, faster!"

Nimnul stepped into their path. "That's my pet name for them, Fat Cat, not yours."

Fat Cat fired wildly, but Nimnul had already dashed back into the room he had come from. "What are you talking about?" he cried.

Off to one side of the door, Laurel was crouched down looking through the scope on her crossbow waiting for Fat Cat to move into just the right position to get a shot off into his shoulder.

Nimnul reached around and fired a few rounds to keep Fat Cat where he wanted him. One thing he'd underestimated was how powerful gunpowder was on a rodent scale and Laurel could see him having difficulty staying on his feet while firing.

"Come now, surely you didn't think I wouldn't anticipate your every move? You're trying to convert the Rangers into reinforcements. Well, it won't work!"

"Won't it? We're evenly matched, and this narrow corridor eliminates the unfair advantage of your bat! Or have you forgotten the fate of your pal with the unpronounceable name?"

Fat Cat walked into the doorway, giving Laurel her opportunity. He quickly found a crossbow bolt in his shoulder and fell to his knees, where he was immediately swarmed by the Rangers, who used their weight to hold him down.

"The name is Lahwhinie. La. Why. Knee. Is that pronounceable enough for you, or do you need me to diagram it?" shouted Laurel.

"Mulder!" Fat Cat screamed.

"Ah, thanks for reminding me," said Nimnul, walking around the prone cat and into the hallway. The sounds of gunfire being exchanged could be heard, followed by silence.

After a few suspenseful seconds, Nimnul nonchalantly turned the corner with the ring of keys in his hand.

"I'm surrounded by idiots!"

"Perhaps you should try a better employment agency."

Suddenly the whole building shook, and an electronic screech tore through the air.

"Did I remember to warn Foxglove not under any circumstances to knock over the Displacer?" asked Nimnul.

"No, you didn't." replied Laurel

"I was afraid of that."

He handed the keys to Chip, who had already been freed, then dashed down the hallway.

Laurel quickly ran up to Fat Cat's face and thumped him between the eyes. They cat's eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor, out cold. Without wasting time to admire her handiwork, Laurel took off after Nimnul.

The lab looked like the site of at least five industrial accidents. Green and blue fires were raging in opposite corners, and a small flying machine was circling the high ceiling under its own power. The far half of the lab was obscured by a thick wall of a heavy greenish gas that hugged the floor. The cause of all this mayhem was the struggle between Foxglove and Winifred. Foxglove was desperately trying to get to get Winifred off the ground, and Winifred was just as desperately trying to get Foxglove down to the ground. As Nimnul and Laurel were taking all this in, a wild swing of a wing knocked over a lit Bunsen burner, igniting an experimental firecracker that launched up into the tiny plane, which crashed down into the obscuring gas.

Despite all this, Nimnul and Laurel's attention sought out one thing only, and the crash moved enough of the gas for them to spot the fallen Displacer, which was vibrating ominously.

Nimnul ran straight for it, but was soon forced to retreat until he had found a portable breathing apparatus.

He tore open a panel of the device, trying to dampen the vibrations with his rotundity until he could find the necessary circuits. Meanwhile the volume and pitch of the sound it emmitted continued to increase.

"It's no use!" he cried through the mouthpiece of the breathing apparatus. "The circuits are fused-there's no way I can drain off the excess energy!"

"Well, time's short and I've got an idea, might as well try it." Laurel ran for the Displacer through the gas, without a breathing mask. "Get clear!" she shouted before slamming into the activation button.

Foxglove heard the warning, released her grip and shot upward. Winifred turned her head just in time to see the device activate. She fell back against the wall, then after a moment shook herself and stood up, a zombie. Seconds later, Laurel passed out.

* * *

"Are you alright?" asked a voice.

Laurel wondered how she managed to end up on the floor.

"I think so," replied Laurel as she lifted herself up on her elbows to see Nimnul standing over her.

Obviously several minutes had elapsed since hitting the button on the Displacer, given the gas had dissipated and the fires had gone out. At the sound of her voice, Foxglove and the Rangers joined Nimnul at her side.

"Congratulations on managing to discharge the Displacer," Nimnul told her. "You are now an honorary mad scientist."

"Mad scientist, me? I don't think so. Spanner in the works, perhaps."

"Wait a second," she added, as her vision cleared. "You're _all_ here? Did I remember to tell somebody to keep an eye on Fat Cat?"

"No, you didn't," said Fat Cat from the doorway. He and Mulder were both sporting bandages on their heads and were armed to the teeth.

The group in the lab slowly stood up. Zombie Winifred wandered aimlessly.

Fat Cat and Mulder slowly made their way around the lab, their weapons and eyes fixed on the Rangers, until they had reached the Displacer.

"What have you done to it?" said Fat Cat, turning to examine the device.

"It's repairable," explained Nimnul. "All you need are a couple diodes, some solder..."

"That's it, I have had enough!" the cat exclaimed. "Mulder, eliminate them, now!"

The fox turned with a confused look on his face. "They're nine of them, Boss. It's not like I can take them all out at once. Should I start with the fly, because he's more prone to escape, or that cheese mouse, because he's the strongest, or maybe the bat, because she's the most predictable, or..."

Fat Cat screamed. "You imbecile, you nitwit, you moron! Take them out! I don't care how, just do it. Follow an order! Just... follow... an... order! Is that so hard?"

"I can't help noticing that you have a bit of an employee relations problem, Fat Cat," Gadget observed. "Considering that this one isn't even a zombie, what do you think the world will be like if you manage to use the Displacer on everybody?"

Mulder finally fired, seemingly at Laurel, however the crossbow bolt bounced off the floor, the wall, and lodged itself in a box above Fat Cat, which began to perilously tilt on its shelf.

At the same time, Winifred served to reinforce Gadget's point by accidentally bumping into Fat Cat. He angrily shoved her to the ground. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! And as for you, Mulder, you're fired!"

"Actually, I'm going to turn in my resignation. As of right now, I quit!"

With Mulder's last word, the box fell.

* * *

The repairs to the Displacer were actually a bit more complicated than Nimnul had told Fat Cat. Instead of five minutes, it was closer to five hours.

"You're cutting this awfully close," warned Laurel, consulting a wall clock.

"I have to make sure the machine works flawlessly. I can't have this thing break down on me before the Rangers get all the zombies and their minds reunited."

"Your counterpart will be on this world, remember? He should be able to handle anything that comes up."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Nimnul mumbled under his breath.

"What was that, Nimnul?"

"He'll be fine, I'm sure."

"Well actually," interrupted Gadget, looking over his shoulder, "this device looks rather simple. Once I get a good look at it, I should be able to come up with all kinds of improvements."

"On second thought, that's _definitely_ what I'm afraid of."

"Exactly," agreed Laurel. "Once we reverse what Fat Cat did, we don't want it getting pulled off again."

Nimnul sighed. "Agreed."

"Gadget, how have the Rangers managed as far as getting all the zombies grouped together in the testing room?" asked Laurel.

"Oh, we're all ready. That's why I came in here to get you."

Nimnul picked up the wired remote control for the Displacer and glanced at the clock.

"We've got five minutes, so let's make this quick."

The three of them walked through the back door of the lab in to the testing room, where the zombies were clustered together. The Rangers, posted around the sides of the room, were periodically ordering the zombies back into the centre as they would forget what they were supposed to do.

At Gadget's signal, they dashed around the zombies to join herself, Nimnul and Laurel.

"The worst that will happen if any of us non-zombies look at it is a bad headache. Still, I wouldn't advise it." Pulling a pair of welder's goggles over his eyes, he pushed the single button on the remote, causing a light to flood out from the distribution lens of the Integrator - as the modified Displacer was now called.

The zombies all changed the direction of their shuffling to head towards the lens in the floor, putting their hands in the beam of light that emerged.

"How long is this supposed to take?" asked Chip.

"That depends on how far their minds have wandered in Limbo," Laurel replied.

Just then, Winifred turned away from the light and stumbled towards the Rangers, both hands over her eyes. "What happened?" she asked.

"Your machine. That's what happened."

Foxglove gleefully stepped forward and slapped a pair of handcuffs over her wrists. "Just settling unfinished business."

Laurel and Nimnul looked at the clock to see that their time was up.

"Aw, and I wanted to see what Fat Cat's goons would do to him once they had recovered!" complained Nimnul.

He walked over to the window in the corridor and opened it to get a look around.

"You know, this world isn't that bad once you get used to it. There's a lot of potential here, a lot of room to make a real difference." He stared out at the blasted and overgrown landscape in thought. "Laurel, have you considered you and me just staying here for the rest of our lives? I wouldn't be at all surprised if our counterparts like it better where they are now to returning here."

Laurel stared coldly at him without saying a word.

"No, I suppose not. Paying for my crimes and so on. Very well. I guess I've gotten my fill of the consequences of acting without thinking of the long term."

"Well, it's nearly time for us to go. Make sure you destroy the machine once those dolts get their minds back."

Chip nodded. "Will do."

"Good lu-" Nimnul started, before his and Lahwhinie's bodies suddenly collapsed.

* * *

**Earth-A**

After a few seconds of disorientation as her mind switched back to using the senses for her home world, Laurel blinked a couple of times. Beside her, while waiting for her vision to clear up, she'd heard Nimnul stand up and sit down again.

Looking around Laurel counted thirteen men pointing guns at Nimnul's head and noticed Nimnul rubbing a scar on his head. Presumably, his counterpart had been persuaded to have surgery while they'd been away.

"Do you really think he's that much of a threat?" Laurel asked the guards. "I think he's learnt his lesson."

A bear of a man Laurel recognised as Assistant Director Klaudaine of The Company from Nimnul's laser demonstration a few months back turned his attention to Nimnul.

"Have you?" he asked him.

Nimnul gulped and stared wide-eyed at the men with guns.

Laurel sighed a bit, waiting for the obvious to penetrate the thick heads typical of government agents the world over. A good ten seconds passed before the order to stand down was given. With that settled, she finally had time to notice Nimnul's actions of the last few minutes.

"Considering what he did this afternoon, I'm surprised he was scared," she said.

"I was provoked," explained Nimnul, sheepishly. "Now, my thanks to whichever brilliant neurosurgeon re-attached the nerves responsible for regaining the ability to walk, but..."

Laurel made a mental note to ask Nimnul about the claim to have been provoked.

"Actually, we didn't," said Francine. "Dr. Russell fixed the brain damage that was making you increasingly erratic since the Battle of Clavius. That your paralysis was cured as a side-effect was a complete surprise."

_If the brain damage was only making him erratic, then he shouldn't have been paralysed, unless..._

"Oh, this is brilliant!" exclaimed Laurel with a laugh. "He was never really paralysed in the first place, he just induced a reverse placebo effect on himself! You must feel quite the fool now, Nimnul! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Laurel took a good minute to recompose herself. She hadn't laughed that hard in years.

Nimnul tried to summon a good glare, but he failed and just sighed. "As I was saying, thanks for the fix, but now what's going to happen to me?"

"We had a good deal of discussion of that," said Assistant Director Klaudaine. "Some of us were perfectly willing to let the Rescue Rangers take him back to their world, but rational minds prevailed."

"I should hope so!" exclaimed Laurel. "Prophecy or no prophecy, I don't trust him not to revert to his usual imbecilic behaviour if left alone on his original world."

"Agreed. In addition, this planet is still vulnerable to alien attack, and Nimnul, you have been the best defender this planet has ever had. We will now do you the favour of swapping your two titles. You will now be Norton II, Emperor of the Moon and Protector of Earth, although the former title will be largely ceremonial. The astronomical observatory on the far side of the Moon has been expanded into your palace. Mr. Kano here will be our liaison."

Nimnul's mouth hung open, stunned. Laurel's guess was that it was probably because Nimnul had been expecting to be thrown in jail. Then again, the fact that David's bio-morph disguise was working again was probably also a contributing factor. With David involved again, guessing where events were headed was fairly straightforward.

Laurel spoke up. "I'd like to join David on the Moon, if you'll have me."

Klaudaine nodded his assent. "Professor, we will provide you with the means to explore and invent to your heart's content between invasions. We also expect that you will be able to come up with a truly-useful alien detector."

Nimnul's expression remained unchanged. Laurel's face took on a smirk. "Anybody home, Professor?" she asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Uh-huh," replied Nimnul slowly.

For a minute, Laurel just sat there watching David input the coordinates for Earth-R into the Dimensional Controller and occasionally glancing at the stunned Nimnul to her side. Shortly after Nimnul's mind caught up with what he'd been landed with, and started responding again, David had Laurel and Nimnul move so that Francine could be switched with Winifred from Earth-R.

As she got up, Laurel caught the tail end of a conversation between Francine and Carolyn.

"And between the two of us, this planet is about to become very uncomfortable," finished Francine.

"Uncomfortable?" asked Laurel, turning around. "It seems to me this world is better off now than it has ever been in human memory."

"Ah, that's the key word there: _human_ memory. We humans have been exploiting the animals of this planet for thousands of years. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the 'gift of gab' the people of Earth so graciously bestowed on the Rescue Rangers didn't stop with them. For the first time, animals have the ability to demand the rights they deserve as sentient beings. Will the humans give it to them? Perhaps, and perhaps they need a persuader, someone with first-hand experience of working with animals both feral and sentient."

"Winifred Cadwallader?" asked Carolyn. "Good choice."

"Yes. She shall use my fortune to avert a possible 'War of the Species', while I get a vacation."

Chip, standing on a nearby table, looked up at Francine. "We should keep in touch," he said, cautiously. From the sounds of it, Chip didn't trust Francine, even if Laurel did.

"I put myself in your hands, Hero," she replied in a tone half conciliatory and half challenging.

"The Switcher is ready," David announced.

Gadget bowed. "You first, Mrs. Nulton."

Francine smirked, reaching her hand out towards the pulsating wall of the Switcher. "Mrs. Nulton is so formal. Just call me..." And she fell unconscious.

While Winifred recovered from her switch, Laurel started giving herself a check. Minor scrapes on the fingers and a mild solder burn. Lahwhinie must have been busy while she was here. Checking her bio-morph disguise, she noticed that it was not only still functional, but the screen didn't keep flickering while it was on. Around the edges, she found some signs of it having been opened. Either Lahwhinie or, more probably, Gadget, given her world had the more recent technology base, must have managed some degree of repairs while she'd been gone.

Checking her pockets, she found a note. The handwriting looked very similar to her own, but a quick glance at the bottom revealed it to be signed by Lahwhinie.

The note began with several crossed-out ways of addressing the recipient, before finally settling on simply her name followed by a colon, much like how Laurel herself had opened her note to Lahwhinie.

_Laurel:_

_I hope you were successful in improving "your" Nimnul's behaviour during your brief exile to my world (Francine told me the whole story about him, hence the quotes). I took the opportunity to study some of your world's technology while Nimnul was in the hospital. I think it should help give us a boost in rebuilding our world's technology base. I'll start writing down what I can remember as soon as I get back._

_About the device on your wrist: it malfunctioned and lost power on me at one point. I can see why Francine says you act paranoid. If I had to worry about looking the way you do when that device gets shut off, I'd be paranoid, too. Anyway, I got it running again and Gadget managed to fix it as best she could. The reverse process still doesn't work, so you're stuck with the choice of human or... I have no idea what to call what you turn into when the power goes out. Anyway, it won't cut out randomly any more and the new battery should last about three years._

_I'm not sure what happened with David's device. Gadget didn't fix it, so I can only assume he did and didn't tell me. You'll have to ask him for the details._

_Chip doesn't seem to trust me, but I don't think it's anything to do with you. He only started acting distrustful after I gave my name. My guess is he had a bad experience with his world's Lahwhinie, so don't be too surprised if he starts acting hostile towards you._

_I'd better wrap this up, given Nimnul has already finished his note (which from the sounds of his rehearsal, isn't very flattering) and is looking impatient to get back home and put all those books he read in the hospital to use._

_Good luck,_

_Lahwhinie._

_P.S. No need to worry about your secret appearance getting out. I insisted that Gadget keep the disguise powered the whole time she was fixing it._

Laurel re-read the note a few times, then headed over to Nimnul and asked him what his counterpart had to say.

"Suffice it to say, my counterpart has a rather colourful vocabulary and a low opinion of me," replied Nimnul.

"Considering what he's been doing for his world, can you blame him?"

"No, I suppose not. Maybe once he's filled in on what we did, he might change his mind. In any case, I'm sure all the science books he read while in the hospital will go a long way towards rebuilding his world's technology base."

"Couple that with Lahwhinie's study of actual devices, and I think that's a given."

"You know, in retrospect, I have been wondering why I didn't try switching with a world like the one you took me to instead of this one in the first place. That world was actually good in its own way."

"It wasn't the first world I examined as a possible place to send you. The first one was so alien it actually scared me. The human eye just cannot make sense out of that place. Whatever senses our counterparts have there, they're nothing like what we know right now."

"We should look into that world once things settle down again."

"Oh, I don't know. I think I'd rather try and find my counterpart who helped me out in limbo. Her world is one of a small cluster of about a hundred similar ones with magic and medieval technology."

"Would magic even work here?" asked Nimnul.

Laurel looked over at the now recovered Winifred who had been switched with Francine while she was talking. Winifred managed a spark of magic.

"Yeah, I think it does. That could be a research project for you, eh, Professor?"

Nimnul's face took on a thoughtful look. Laurel turned her attention a bit more towards the conversation around her.

"Don't hesitate to call us if he starts acting up again," said Chip. "Or _she_, for that matter."

Laurel could tell the emphasis on the word "she" was directed at her and headed over to the chipmunk.

"Hey, Chip?" asked Laurel calmly. "I think you need to work on your snap judgements. I have done more than enough to justify which side I'm on."

Leaving Chip with a poke in the chest to make her point, Laurel headed back over to Nimnul to watch the Rangers switch back to their universe. After some goodbyes to Carolyn and Honker, the Rangers gave their famous cry and slapped their hands against the switcher and collapsed to the ground while their counterparts from this world adjusted back to their home.

For some reason, Laurel couldn't help but think of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."

_"Some may see interesting times as a curse,"_ thought Laurel. _"Personally, I think they're just what this world needs."_

* * *

- End of story


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